To sum up, this proposal will help support the healthcare providers daily activities as it will im- prove communication among the care members and improve care coordination of the treatment according to the ICP guidelines. Other benefits include:
• improved efficiency, • better use of resources, • reduced workload, • saving time,
• improved traceability, • change management, • context-based access, • context- based action, and • system adaptability.
These benefits overlap, however they all come together to give better support to the multi- professional team’s activities.
12.3
Technical Evaluation
A case study of the breast cancer scenario implemented in this proposal was submitted to the WfMC [11] for entry to the “Global Award for Excellence in Adaptive Case Management (ACM)” [10] in 2011. The case submitted was awarded the Golden Award in the “Medical and Healthcare” category.
12.3.1
Submission Process
The process of submitting the case study to the award was in two stages. First, an abstract was submitted for initial review. Second, depending on the reviewers, a full case study is submitted for final judgement. The feedback of the two stages will be presented in the following sections.
156 12.3 Technical Evaluation
12.3.2
Initial Submission’s Feedback
An abstract answering the following questions was submitted to ensure it was a qualifying ACM case study [10]:
• Who (by the roles within the organisation) are the users of the system? • What area(s) of the business does the case management system affect? • Why should this submission be considered a successful case study?
The initial feedback on the abstract submitted, by the two reviewers was as follows :
• “Healthcare is the natural place for a case management solution. From the description this is a direct fit into the desired category. I would be very interested in how the doctors are able to augment and adapt the processes directly: what formalism is used to describe the process to them, and how do they express changes ” [254].
• “A good fit for (an) ACM case study. Recommended to move ahead with submission. Looking forward to reading the full story ” [254].
This very positive feedback motivated the move to the next step of submitting a full case study, for inclusion in the competition.
12.3.3
Final Submission’s Feedback
The full case study submitted also went into a review process were the judgement criteria were: innovation, adaptability, and impact. In the live award ceremony winners announcement, two of the reviewers explained their thoughts on this proposal (see Appendix B for full transcript of the award winners announcement). The consideration and the inclusion of the reviewer’s feedback is very important, considering their experience in the technology and its usage. The reviewers were: Keith Swenson and Nathaniel Plamer. A short biography of the reviewers is:
• “Keith Swenson is Vice President of Research and Development at Fujitsu America Inc. and is the Chief Software Architect for the Interstage family of products He is known for having been a pioneer in collaboration software and web services, and has helped the development of many workflow and BPM standards. He is currently the Chairman of the Technical Committee of the Workflow Management Coalition. In the past, he led (the) development of collaboration software (at) MS2, Netscape, Ashton Tate and Fujitsu. In
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2004 he was awarded the Marvin L. Manheim Award for outstanding contributions in the field of workflow” [255].
• “Nathaniel Palmer is a Principal and Chief BPM Strategist with SRA International, Inc. [NYSE: SRX] a 1.5 Billion dollar system integrator (company) based in Washington, D.C., where he serves as a leader of the BPM and SOA Practice. Also Editor-in-Chief of BPM.com, as well as the Executive Director of the Workflow Management Coalition” [256].
The judges comments on this proposal’s case study we’re announced in a live ceremony [10]. The judges comments are summarised in table 12.8. In table 12.8 we classify the judges com- ments by the three judgement criteria; innovation, adaptability, and impact.
12.3.4
Discussion
The technology experts’ evaluation is considered an important evaluation stage of this research. Their acknowledgment of it is a valid approach and recognition of its innovation is an important recognition of the value of the research.
In terms of the innovation, the judges found that the approach looked in-depth into the improve- ment needed in the domain and that it represented a very good example in a very engaging and promising case study. The innovation involved using workflow technology as a platform for a team collaborating around the patient. This was achieved by following the lifecycle of patients and their treatment management and involving the multiple organisations and users involved in the care team. This provides context-based information in real time.
In terms of its adaptability, the judges found this to be satisfied by having the right information available at the right time. This was achieved by supporting automation with a lot of consider- ation to the need to adapt the pathway to the individual patient and provide options to the users to control the pathway being followed.
The impact was viewed by the judges to be supporting patient-centric care, pulling organisa- tions and healthcare providers together and supporting collaboration among these elements. Moreover, they asserted that the proposed approach allows doctors to be knowledge workers and support the decision making process. Doctors in this case will spend more of their time looking after their patients rather than looking for the medical information they need was a conclusion of the judges. We are not sure this will be the case and future work will have to investigate this aspect.